A Quiet Place Is a Parable About Family

A Quiet Place is a family movie. We’re hearing that it’s a post-apocalyptic horror movie, and it’s really effective at being that, but it’s real power–and its potential for staying power–is parabolic. It’s a taut depiction of the challenges families face, and even more so the unique journeys of individuals within families. Whether you’re a son or a daughter or a mother, father, brother or sister, A Quiet Place might have something to say to you.

Plot summaries and full reviews are plentiful elsewhere, so I just want to articulate a few (spoiler-filled!) reflections on what A Quiet Place has to say about families, especially about traditional family roles, the strength of mothers, and how we treat our most vulnerable children.

It’s surprising initially how much the husband and wife in the film, played by director John Krasinski and his real-life spouse Emily Blunt, fall into traditional male-female roles. From the very opening sequence, the film establishes that the father is a protector and provider, while the mother is a nurturer and caretaker. We don’t yet know a lot about what this family of five is going through, but we know they’re in a post-apocalyptic landscape, fending for themselves. They may be the only family on earth — or even a first family of a new earth, which reinforces the symbolic weight of each of their roles.

The husband/father, Lee, is almost a paragon of manliness. He reminded me of Michael Landon in Little House on the Prairie. Rugged, handsome. Tender toward wife and kids. He’s something of a scientist, but also something of a farmer. A skilled hunter-gatherer. A strategic thinker. It’s amazing how little of this comes off as corny or over-done — even his beard and broad shoulders are idealized types. But again, this is a parable, and parables work in types.

Meanwhile, the wife/mother, Evelyn (note the first three letters of her name), also falls into a traditional role. She cooks, she cleans. In a pivotal scene, when Lee goes off with his son to do some hunting-gathering, Evelyn stays behind with her daughter. (They are now a family of only four.) We see Lee teaching his son to trap and kill; we see Evelyn pinning shirts to the clothesline.

So the film had me thinking: Is it really embracing these old-school gender stereotypes?

But by the end of the film, much of this is upended. Not contradicted, but rather extended and complicated. The father remains heroic, even as he reaches the final limits of what he can do for his family. But the mother emerges much more fully by the final frame.

Indeed, a huge portion of the third act is devoted to Evelyn and to depicting her struggle and her strength. Again, she’s been left behind, and it becomes clear why the film arranged to leave her alone. It’s not only to ratchet up the tension when the monster inevitably terrorizes individual family members, one at a time. It’s also because it’s crucial for us to experience Evelyn in her solitude.

Things work differently for different families, of course, but for so many mothers, the experience of motherhood involves considerable loneliness. Much of the work of mothering happens alone. Perhaps there’s pleasure in this solitude; there’s also undoubtedly pain in it. At one point, we see Evelyn sitting alone in a room, reflecting on the loss of her son and weeping. We’ve not seen her mourn before now, when everyone else is around—her agony is private.

Later, Evelyn goes into labor, and she has to fend for herself and her new baby against the monster. (Emily Blunt is always good, but her performance in this sequence is stunning.) Labor pangs start right as the monster is on the prowl. Because the one rule with this monster is that you can’t make a sound, she has to endure the suffering of childbirth in absolute quiet. She’s also injured her foot and is bleeding profusely. Evelyn has to suffer some of the worst pain a body can suffer–all without making a peep. And she does it, with an awesome display of determination and power.

Watching her wore me out.

Because so much screen time is invested in depicting her strength, the finale makes sense. In the last moment, she cocks her gun to take on the coming monsters, and we do not doubt that she has the power to protect her children and survive.

Finally, there is the daughter, who is deaf and who is the center of this story. (The wonderful actor who plays her, Millicent Simmonds, is deaf, too. Much of the dialogue in the film occurs through American Sign Language.) This movie has a lot to say about how we regard our disabled children — how we care for them, and how much we have to learn from them, and how ultimately, in the end, they might save us.

Go to see a well-made horror flick. That’s what I did. But unlike a lot of horror films, there’s not much sinister here. On the contrary, there’s a benevolent parable about people who find themselves in families, and what people in families can do for each other.